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Shirov dumped by "tourist"

In Las Vegas, Liveu Dieter Nisipeanu of Romania scored the biggest upset by knocking out hot favourite grandmaster Alexy Shirov of Spain from the quarterfinals of the world chess championship being played at Hotel Caesars Palace here.

Twenty-three-year-old Nisipeanu, who is 150 ELO international rating points below Shirov, has assured himself of 1,40,000 dollars (around rs 60 lakh) with this shocking win.

Grandmaster Judith Polgar's dream of becoming world champion ahead of all the men was shattered as she could only draw her game from the white side against Russian grandmaster Alexander Khalifman and lost the match with 0.5-1.5 margin.

The Kramnik-Adams and Movsezian-Akopian encounters will be decided through tie-breakers on sunday morning.

The Latvian-born Shirov was given 11-10 odds by the official bookies Victor Chandler after the grandmaster's thumping win over Nigel Short in the fourth round. On the other hand Nisipeanu was rank outsider with 25-1 odds. Garry Kasparov had brushed Nisipeanu aside as ''a tourist'' along with Movsezian and Akopian, on Garry's website. Against this background, young Nisipeanu played the best defensive chess against Shirov's violent play.

Sirov employed advance variation against Nisipeanu's Caro Kann defence and soon started throwing his king side pawns forward. The spectators were baffled by Shirov's decision to give up a pawn on 9th move. However, the Latvian-born Shirov managed to find some compensation with his daredevil play.

The general opinion was that Shirov should have agreed for a draw after the queens were exchanged on the 24th move. But he seemed to have lost his mind in the heat of battle. He played a horrifying blunder on the 27th move losing his rook for Nisipeanu's knight. Thereafter, the Romanian sealed the match with perfect play in 41 moves.

Alexander Khalifman employed the Caro Kann, too, and Polgar avoided her pet Panov-Botwinnik attack but still managed to find advantage in the endgame. Her 16th move of a pawn was particularly impressive. However Khalifman rose to the occasion. He defended accurately and knocked Judith out, then said that he was not nervous playing against a girl. "I am not so young anymore, so the sex doesn't matter," the former Russian champion smiled.

The highly-rated pair of Adams and Kramnik drew their game after just 17 moves and decided to leave their fate to the tie breakers. Grandmaster Lastin could not understand why Adams did not win a pawn before offering a draw.

The game was Moscow attack and it appeared at one stage that Kramnik, with black pieces, enjoyed some advantage.